Amazingly, he thought he did. He had a "warm relationship" with Kim, and really thought he would get Kim to de-nuclearize. This against his intelligence and security agencies recommendations. Trump trusted his gut. Turns out his gut is just as retarded as his head.
:bjarte:

Keating wrote: ↑
Looks like lack of preparation to me, re: Korea. Potentially could have worked if more prep work had been done in the lead up to the meeting.

No. Kim will never willing give up his nukes. He used the time that Trump allowed him to further his weapon capacity and the goodwill to wink-nudge the worst of the sanctions from China. Kim gained a huge deal of legitimacy in Asia, probably especially as he played POTUS like a cheap fiddle. It was a PR stunt for North Korea, as every intelligence head told Trump repeatedly. Trump didn't listen.

You really don't grasp the difference between negotiating and surrendering strategic objectives for no consideration.

Amazing. And illuminating.

Trump caved and handed Kim a blank cheque? I need to catch up.

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration on Tuesday that he intended to end joint military exercises with South Korea took South Korean and U.S. military officials by surprise.

Although the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was consulted ahead of time, current and former U.S. defense officials expressed concern at the possibility that the United States would unilaterally halt military exercises without an explicit concession from North Korea lowering the threat from Pyongyang.

“I’m sort of stunned about how much we gave up and how little we got in return,” said one former official, saying the decision “borders on irresponsible” and would erode readiness and diminish the credibility of the U.S.-South Korean alliance.

Trump made the remarks at a news conference after his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore, calling war games expensive and “provocative” - echoing a North Korean criticism that the United States had long rejected.

Trump also said he wants “at some point” to withdraw the American troops currently in South Korea.

This is a report from last summer. It's a great illustration of Trump's "negotiating tactics". For all of his macho posturing, he sure does turn into a dickless piece of shit whenever he's in the room with a real dictator.

This is a report from last summer. It's a great illustration of Trump's "negotiating tactics". For all of his macho posturing, he sure does turn into a dickless piece of shit whenever he's in the room with a real dictator.

When a party pulls out because of either bad faith or unrealistic goals, it’s typical to blame them. And applaud those seeking to engineer peace.

I will never get used to TDS.

Trump needs to turn the screws and see if good cop, hard cop with a bigger red button, can incite renewed negotiation.
And hopefully he will ignore the democrat ‘tards who’d rather see him fail than support the ‘wrong’ team.

Brive1987 wrote: ↑
When a party pulls out because of either bad faith or unrealistic goals, it’s typical to blame them. And applaud those seeking to engineer peace.

I will never get used to TDS.

Trump needs to turn the screws and see if good cop, hard cop with a bigger red button, can incite renewed negotiation.
And hopefully he will ignore the democrat ‘tards who’d rather see him fail than support the ‘wrong’ team.

The real "TDS" is being so willfully ignorant and blind that you take Trump's ridiculous "attempts" seriously. You may as well be rooting for a psychic medium to actually contact the dead because "who wouldn't want all those mourners to get closure"? He's not a good faith actor, and he's not remotely qualified. The Sea Org also thinks they are trying to "engineer peace" (and enlighten the planet even) and I don't root for them either. Do you?

1) Kim needs to maintain a very strong posture to his subjects. Ultimately his goal is to remain in power and remain alive. If he gives up his nukes now he is risking everything including his life.

2) Trump is willing to help Kim feel safe. He is negotiating with the goal of giving Kim the security he wants. This is Trumps new idea... and it really is new. Prior presidents always assumed that Kim would fall from an internal coup. This was not a bad strategy, but ultimately it failed for decades. The strategy of waiting for an internal coup is not going to work.... this is proven.

3) Trump is going to have trouble giving Kim enough assurance of safety. Most people want Kim dead and Kim knows it. Trump wants the rest of the world to join him in a more friendly posture with Kim. This is why Trump said Kim knew nothing about Warmbier. This is probably a lie, but Trump wants to normalize with Kim... so... he is giving Kim a lot of space.

4) So.... the meeting this week was staged to allow both Trump and Kim to have more time to normalize. Already the two Koreas are starting to communicate and travel between the countries more.

5) Ultimately, Kim might end up keeping a small token nuke power. This would be unfortunate, but is an acceptable situation. As North Korea normalizes trade and sanctions are lifted Kim might be able to save his hide.

Really, I can't think of another negotiation strategy short of open war. So, in my mind, if you don't support Trump on this you are either a proponent of open war or a purely political hack who simply wants Trump to fail.

1) Kim needs to maintain a very strong posture to his subjects. Ultimately his goal is to remain in power and remain alive. If he gives up his nukes now he is risking everything including his life.

2) Trump is willing to help Kim feel safe. He is negotiating with the goal of giving Kim the security he wants. This is Trumps new idea... and it really is new. Prior presidents always assumed that Kim would fall from an internal coup. This was not a bad strategy, but ultimately it failed for decades. The strategy of waiting for an internal coup is not going to work.... this is proven.

3) Trump is going to have trouble giving Kim enough assurance of safety. Most people want Kim dead and Kim knows it. Trump wants the rest of the world to join him in a more friendly posture with Kim. This is why Trump said Kim knew nothing about Warmbier. This is probably a lie, but Trump wants to normalize with Kim... so... he is giving Kim a lot of space.

4) So.... the meeting this week was staged to allow both Trump and Kim to have more time to normalize. Already the two Koreas are starting to communicate and travel between the countries more.

5) Ultimately, Kim might end up keeping a small token nuke power. This would be unfortunate, but is an acceptable situation. As North Korea normalizes trade and sanctions are lifted Kim might be able to save his hide.

Really, I can't think of another negotiation strategy short of open war. So, in my mind, if you don't support Trump on this you are either a proponent of open war or a purely political hack who simply wants Trump to fail.

It was doomed to fail before it started. Kim won't give up the nukes. Kim won't seriously reduce capacity. Trump thinking he could negotiate, especially unprepared, was a massive blunder. He's legitimized the regime in the eyes of many Asians, given China a reason to ignore illegal trade with NK and generally made the US look bad.

It's a mistake to think there's a good solution to the NK problem, other than keeping a strong military presence and keeping sanction pressure. The idea that Trump was going to negotiate a denuclearization deal was risible. His own intelligence services told him that, but he thought his gut was smarter.

Keating wrote: ↑
Looks like lack of preparation to me, re: Korea. Potentially could have worked if more prep work had been done in the lead up to the meeting.

No. Kim will never willing give up his nukes. He used the time that Trump allowed him to further his weapon capacity and the goodwill to wink-nudge the worst of the sanctions from China. Kim gained a huge deal of legitimacy in Asia, probably especially as he played POTUS like a cheap fiddle. It was a PR stunt for North Korea, as every intelligence head told Trump repeatedly. Trump didn't listen.

If Cohen lied to Congress, he could be indicted for it and the world would soon find out.

If Cohen told the truth, then Trump is in trouble.

The allegation could be pivotal because Trump and Stone have been united in denying it, not only in public statements, but also in legally binding assurances to the government.

Trump says Michael Cohen didn't lie about everything during testimony
Lying in public is legal. Lying to the government is a crime. That is why this part of Cohen’s allegation poses such serious legal risks to both Stone and Trump.

Unfortunately for the White House, Cohen’s account has extra corroboration, which provides more supporting evidence than his other new claims that could be dismissed as a “he said/he said” dispute.

Here is why. Cohen testified he “was in Mr. Trump's office” in July 2016, when Stone called Trump to warn about an impending “WikiLeaks drop of emails.”

That matches the broader evidence Mueller has on Stone, Trump's longtime confidant. The special counsel’s indictment states that "around June and July 2016," Stone told senior Trump campaign officials about the email dump. In legal terms, Mueller believes he has the evidence to back up that claim, which he must do to prove Stone lied about it.

We don’t know everything Stone told the House in closed testimony, but we do know about a key exchange, because in order to indict Stone, Mueller had to publicly file it. Stone was asked, “Did you discuss your conversations with the [WikiLeaks] intermediary with anyone involved in the Trump campaign?”

Brive1987 wrote: ↑
When a party pulls out because of either bad faith or unrealistic goals, it’s typical to blame them. And applaud those seeking to engineer peace.

I will never get used to TDS.

Trump needs to turn the screws and see if good cop, hard cop with a bigger red button, can incite renewed negotiation.
And hopefully he will ignore the democrat ‘tards who’d rather see him fail than support the ‘wrong’ team.

The real "TDS" is being so willfully ignorant and blind that you take Trump's ridiculous "attempts" seriously. You may as well be rooting for a psychic medium to actually contact the dead because "who wouldn't want all those mourners to get closure"? He's not a good faith actor, and he's not remotely qualified. The Sea Org also thinks they are trying to "engineer peace" (and enlighten the planet even) and I don't root for them either. Do you?

They are not President of the United States. And their actions didn’t (in strong part) get N and S Korean leaders dancing on the DMZ. So I’ll cut the guy some slack.

The problem is, of course, that this is a multi-faceted clusterfuck. Trump (Orange Man Bad) has committed a variety of sins, some before assuming office, some after. It's difficult to keep track of, even for those immersed in the genre of corrupt politics. There's just never been anything of this scale before. Nor the brazen disregard of the law, the truth and the norms that conservatives claim to love, but were quick to abandon once kissing the Trump Rump became de rigueur for the in right. It's a mess, quite frankly. If I posted everything of concern, it would be a serious flood.

Some of you, like some of my old friends on Facebook (a serious cancer to avoid, Facebook that is) say "ach, you're just being partisan. You're just hoping everything is a Trump failure!" Well, to be honest, I do have a good laugh when Trump fumbles everything he does. It was inevitable that he'd screw up, because he always does. If you've followed his exploits for years, as I have, you'd know that's his modus operandi. If he succeeds in anything, it's because he conned somebody. This is axiomatic. It was foreordained, and by the gods, we tried to warn you.

I'm a patriot. I believe in my country, and hate seeing it degraded by that shambling narcissist. I despise those that would throw our Constitution under the bus for a quick gain. So it's not partisan. Many, if not most of the opinion pieces I post are from conservatives. There are those on the moderate left who say, not without provocation, that Republicans and the right deserve their imminent obscurity. But I've followed, and been involved enough in politics to know that the dynamic tension (as espoused by the eminent Dr Frankenfurter) is the balance we need. Either party on their own soon goes off the rails. We need our loyal opposition.

So, while I'm having my amusement at Trump's expense, I'm also hoping that the spell of Trump University 2.0 is wearing off. That people are starting to see that everyone else not in the cult of personality are seeing, or starting to see; the catastrophic failure that is Trump. The signs are everywhere, writ in large neon at this point.

I get the protest vote thing. I understand that Hillary wasn't the best America had to offer. But expecting that Trump would do anything but burn it all down was a forlorn, and at this point, religious hope. The man is a cunt. He will undermine my nation, and maybe even on purpose. He only obeys his ego. He doesn't care about anything but his narcassim. The fact that Putin supported him so firmly should give you pause.

The fact that seven of his closest friends and advisers have been convicted of Federal crimes should be a clue as to the man's character and judgment. If it was a liberal, I'm sure you'd connect the dots fairly quickly. You might, for your own piece of mind, now question if supporting Trump is still in your best interest.

Lsuoma wrote: ↑
I think that CFB is in many cases annoying and tedious. But the above post, I can sign up to, 100%.

No one ever imagined giving Trump a civics medal. Yes, on the one hand he doesn’t follow the norms, conventions and niceties of Party Politics. He is the manipulative, bombastic rule breaker we saw on the Apprentice. But those that elected him had largely ceased to give a fuck for form and procedure that didn’t deliver.

On the other hand he has set out to change things that people did cared about.
+ Unbalanced trade agreements.
+ Inequitable political partnerships.
+ Social justice aligned pandering to minorities.
+ The military ‘bull in a china shop’ approach to realpolitik
+ Reaffirmation of border security and national,self determination

Because let’s face it. For all his hamburgers, affairs and omg 😮 New York developer dodginess, its not like anybody else was going to engage with these issues. The voters largely got (subject to pragmatic limits) what they wanted.